Saturday, March 5, 2011

Yesterday morning I got a call that woke me up. I picked up the phone and groaned when I saw that it was Chiy. Somebody called off work and he wants me to come in, I thought. I checked the time... it was 11:41 am. Ok, he probably wants me to come in at 2:00, so I can at least get some more sleep. I drifted off again and the phone rang again...

I answered it and Chiy started off by offering me, in a very apologetic and nervously roundabout way (which I barely understood, due to his accent), an arrangement for Sundays schedule in that instead of working 2:00 to 10:00 I could come in whenever I wanted, do my ordering, and then leave... and would I please come in and work today because both Brittney and Matius called off?

Well heck. What other boss would go to that kind of trouble, in such an obsequious manner, to try to make it as pleasant as possible for an assistant manager to simply perform one of the duties included in the job description, which is covering for sick employees?

Chiy sprung a schedule change on me once that conflicted with church, and I complained about it like a whiney child. Because of and since my little tirade, Chiy has been reluctant to call me in to work on my day off for fear of interrupting any church plans I might have, and he's worked double shifts several times as a result. When I realized that he could have called me at those times but instead chose to work double shifts, I felt rotten. The other day I told him not to hesitate to call me if he needed me to cover for somebody.

So here's what happened on my day off at work yesterday:

1. A customer was buying a 2 liter of Coke and a bag of chips. I steamrollered the bag of chips when I knocked his 2 liter over. It just rolled inexorably over the bag... it didn't even slow down. In a way, it was just completely awesome.

2. A pimply faced Asian teenager and her... boyfriend? 'Big Brother' sponsor? Stepdad? The guy she was with was heavy set, looked to be in his early 30's, and definitely wasn't Asian - more like backwoods hillbilly. Anyway, these two stood outside for a while and I couldn't help but notice the Asian had a big ole frowny face. She was looking at the Red Box while big brother picked out a movie. She didn't seem pleased with his choice. After this she came into the store, Miss Frowny Face, and headed over to the donuts.

Then big brother came in and declared, "I am so hungry. I mean, you don't know how hungry I am. Come on, lets go! We don't have time for donuts!"

"But I wanted some coffee," bleated frowny face as she followed him out.

"You just don't understand how hungry I am..." and his voice faded as they exited the store. I thought they were gone, but after about half a minute Frowny face came back in and headed over to the coffee pots and poured a cup. I looked outside and saw hillbilly brother standing next to the car with the door open, waiting with his arms crossed, looking as if he was about to drop dead from starvation. Frowny face was smiling as she paid for her coffee.

3. At one point I was talking to Brian when he suddenly laughed and exclaimed, "Look at that!" I followed him over to the hot dog grill. Yup, those hot dogs were trying to escape again. One had already fallen onto the floor, and another had fallen onto the grease catcher beneath the grill. The other two were in the process of escaping, with one half on one roller and half on another, and the other wedged between the last roller and the edge of the grill. It had gotten stuck.

4. Chiy gave me a Twisted Tea hat. It looks exactly like something a podunk hillbilly would wear. It was part of a promotional package for Twisted Tea, the new wave in alcohol consumption - iced tea with 5.5% alcohol. Two bottles came with the promo package; one was regular and the other was lemon. Chiy said, "Here, I give these to you." He handed me the bottles. "You take home and drink and then tell me if it good. If it good, we order it and see if it sell." So, I took home and I try, and it taste just like tea. Tea with alcohol in it. I call Chiy a few minutes ago and tell him that it have no carbonation, it taste just like tea with alcohol in it. I tell him that I like it, that maybe we try to sell it. Maybe customer like, maybe not, but is worth trying, I tell him. So we order some Twisted Tea and see if people like. If they like, we sell. If they don't, I take home and drink, I guess.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Last Sunday night I got home from work and Matt was really drunk. He had been drinking the bottle of Even Williams that I had bought with Chey after we had visited Aunt Sue. He was in a good mood, so we both did a couple of shots. We joked around and had a little fun, and then after a while I went into my room and started typing up a blog. He followed me into my room and tried to get me to play with the dogs with him. I told him that I wanted to finish my blog, and after several failed attempts to elicit my attention, he began to get irritated. He threw a small fit, then got up and went into the living room and yelled, "you're an asshole!" There was silence for about 20 minutes. I finally finished my blog, and when I tried to post it, I realized that I had no internet. I went into the living room to check the connection, and Matt was sitting there by the router, just smiling at me and giving me the finger. I asked him what he was doing, and why he had disconnected my internet. I tried to look at the router, but he kept it away from me, all the while just smiling at me and giving me the finger. He wouldn't respond to me at all. I could see where things were heading, so I decided that I would just leave, so I took my book and flashlight and went on a long walk.

After a couple of hours, I came back and Matt was in the living room with the music turned up. I asked him to turn it down so that I could go to sleep, and he did. I went into my room and got in bed and was trying to doze off when all of a sudden I heard the music blaring again. I got up and opened the door and told Matt that I had to work the next day and needed to get some sleep, and I asked him to turn off the music. He got belligerent and asked me what right I had to think that things always had to go my way, and that the world had to bend to my will. At this point he was just being completely drunk and unreasonable. He smiled at me with this sarcastic, F you smile and started to bring a shot of Even Williams to his lips. I went into the living room and shut off the music, and tried to take the shot from him. We struggled with it, and finally the whiskey spilled all over the couch. We stood there, both of us kind of stunned at what had just happened, and after a few seconds I went back into my room and shut the door.

I tried to go to sleep but Matt was still in the living room, cussing and yelling and just making it impossible for me to sleep, and all the while I was getting more and more angry. I finally got back up and opened the door and asked him what the hell his problem was. He started to insult me. He called me fat, and worthless, and said that I was just a moocher and that he wanted me to just go away, and that he hated me. He said that I couldn't survive without him, and that he was sick of me mooching off of him. He brought up the time that I was drawing unemployment for so long, and said that I had just been stealing from the government and ever since I had been mooching off of him. I couldn't believe what he was accusing me of. Just a week before he had told me that he had dropped all of his classes and was going to keep the thousands of dollars of student loan money so that he could finance a hiking trip across America. I told him that he was the one mooching off of the government, and that he was actually stealing his student loan money so that he could throw away four years of grad school for some crazy backpacking trip.

This made him furious and he got up and pushed me back into my room. He kept pushing me, saying that he was going to kill me. Then he started punching me in the face, as hard as he could. He punched me several times, and I retreated into my room and tried to ward him off. He kept coming and kept punching me, until I had fallen onto the floor and was sitting against the wall with my arms over my head. He couldn't get a good punch in anymore, so he reached under my arms and grabbed my throat and started choking me, all the while shouting that he was going to kill me. I couldn't breathe, and I started to wonder if he really was going to kill me. He held me like that for about 30 seconds with me gasping for breath and he finally let me go. He got up and stormed into the living room and slammed the door to my room. I could hear him yelling and cussing in there, screaming F YOU, I HATE YOU, GET THE F OUT! over and over.

He finally seemed to run out of steam, and after about 10 minutes of silence, I went into the kitchen to get some Gatorade out of the fridge because my throat hurt from being choked. He tried to engage me with insults again, and I told him that I was finished and that I just wanted to sleep because I had to work. I was in a daze, not quite believing what had just happened, and I asked him if I could please just go to sleep now without him storming into my room and beating me up. He yelled at me some more, so I went quickly into my room, closed the door and turned out the light. I sat on my bed for a while, smoking a cigarette, still in a daze, when the door busted open again. Matt entered the room and was screaming, GET THE F OUT, GET THE F OUT! I got up and turned on the light and said, "Ok, I'm leaving, I'm leaving. Let me get dressed and I'll leave." I looked around for my clothes and grabbed my pants. I thought about where I would go, and decided to call Chey. I grabbed for my phone and Matt pushed me away from it. He started to punch me in the face again. I tried to get away but he kept punching me and punching me, as hard as he could.

I was dazed, in pain, and my head was ringing from getting punched in the face so much, so I decided at this point that I should probably start trying to defend myself. As I was scrambling away from him, I threw some punches at him but didn't really connect with any. When I started throwing punches, he grabbed me by the wrists and tried to twist my arms behind me. As I tried to break out of his grip, I forced my arm up and tried to elbow him in the side of the head. He pushed me up against the wall and held my arms down so I couldn't move. He still had a lock on my wrists, so I dropped to my knees and this brought his arms closer to my face. I bit his forearm hard, and he let go. I jumped up and ran across the room. He was coming at me again, so I grabbed the first thing I saw, which was my guitar. I wielded it like a bat and hit him with it as he came at me. The first hit got him in the back. I hit him again, in the arm. I hit him a third time, in the back of the head, and he went down and didn't move. I stood there for a few seconds, shaking with fear and shock and anger. I put the guitar down and started to gather my clothes again. Matt started to move so I knelt down next to him and shouted, "Don't get up! Leave me alone! I'm leaving! Don't get up! I'm leaving! Don't get up! Leave me alone!" I had my fist balled and almost hit him in the face, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I got back up and looked around for my phone. As I was about to grab it, Matt jumped up and grabbed my guitar and started hitting me with it all over my head and back. I tried to block the guitar with my forearm and he hit it and it hurt bad. I managed to grab the neck though, and we struggled with it until finally he pushed as hard as he could and knocked me down. He started to come at me with the guitar, like he was just going to beat me to death with it, and I screamed and covered my head. He stopped and stood there for a few seconds and then threw the guitar against the wall and left.

I sat there for a while, breathing hard and waiting for him to come back. He screamed for a while, saying F YOU, I HATE YOU a few times, and finally things got silent. I tasted blood on my mustache and wiped it with my hand and it came away bloody. I picked up a towel that was on the floor and wiped my face and it came away bloody. After about 10 more minutes I finally decided that it was maybe safe to go into the bathroom to assess the damage, so I did. I looked in the mirror and I thought that my ears looked weird. I noticed that my left ear was lopsided, as if it had been torn away from my head. I felt behind it but there wasn't any blood. I wondered if the cartilage inside had been torn away from my skull, and I hoped that I wasn't going to be deformed for life. I saw that the bridge of my nose was cut and bleeding, and that blood was dripping steadily from my nostrils, soaking my mustache a bloody red, and my forearm was cut. I ran water and splashed my face with it and it came away red and bloody. I tried to clean the blood out of my mustache, but my nose wouldn't stop bleeding. I kept wiping it with the towel I had, which by this time had bloody smears all over it. I gave up trying to make it stop bleeding and just held the towel against my face. Then I went back into my room and was finally able to pick up my phone without Matt attacking me.

My bedroom door was open and Matt was watching me from the living room, and when I started to dial Cheyenne's number, he yelled "Stop! Stop, don't! Please stop! Are you ok? Are you ok, Ash?" I stood there with the phone in my hand and didn't say anything. I had been in a constant state of shock for the last 45 minutes or so, and I couldn't think of anything to say to this sudden display of concern from my brother after he had just tried several times to kill me with his bare hands. I said, "Do you want me to leave? I'll leave, just let me leave and don't attack me again. I swear I'll leave." Then Matt said, "I'm sorry, are you ok?" I said, "I'm bleeding, my nose is bleeding. I don't know if I'm ok. My head hurts. My ear isn't right." I started to go back into my room, thinking that maybe Matt would finally let me rest and leave me in peace. I shut the door and I heard him scream, "You better bet sorry too, mother F'er!" I Immediately picked up the guitar and held it like a club, facing the door, ready and waiting for Matt to come busting through again. I stood like that for about 5 minutes with Matt yelling occasionally from the living room, but my door never busted open. I finally heard him go into his room and shut the door. He was quiet for a while, but now and then I would hear him yell something inarticulate. I got back into bed and tried to go to sleep, but I couldn't get over the fear that Matt would storm back into my room at any minute and attack me again. I finally got up and began to get dressed. I had the idea that I would just walk around for a few hours with my book, and that eventually Matt would pass out and I could come home again safely. So I did that. I got up and got ready, and I assembled a few important things... money, my prayer book, my flashlight, my baptismal cross (which I had taken off when I thought that I was going to bed), cigarettes, gum, my book, and a few other knick knacks. Matt knew that I was up because he could see that my light was on through the crack in my door, and he started shouting at me to leave again. I hurried and when I was finally ready, I left.

After a few hours I came back, hoping that Matt was passed out in his room. I peeked in through the living room window and was filled with dread when I saw Matt sitting in the living room, wide awake. However, I thought that maybe he had calmed down by now, so I opened the door and went quickly into my room. As I passed him, he said "Look at my arm where you bit me, you motherF'er!" I quickly shut my door and got in bed. Nothing happened for about 15 minutes, except that I got unbearably thirsty. I finally had to get up and go into the kitchen for some water. Matt didn't say anything until I started to go back into my room. He said, "I think you broke my arm, you asshole!" He was cradling his left arm. I said, "I'm sorry, but you attacked me." He said, "It hurts like a motherF'er!" I said, "My head hurts too," and it did. "Matt immediately said "Shut the F up!" I hurried into my room and shut the door. I turned off the light, got into bed, and drank the water I had brought with me. After that it was quiet, and I lay there worrying about Matt, hoping that his arm wasn't really broken. Then I heard Matt yell, "HEY!" Oh no. Maybe he was yelling at the dogs. Please no, leave me alone. I just want to be alone. My door opened a crack. I laid motionless, hoping that he wouldn't hit me if I was just lying there. I looked up and he was standing there, handing me a steaming mug. He was using his left arm, and I was relieved to see that it wasn't really broken. "Here's something warm to drink. Some Theraflu. I love you Ash." I took the mug and he shut the door. "I love you too Matt," I said. I took a drink from the mug and set it down, then I tried to go to sleep. My head and ear hurt too bad though, so I just laid there until it was time to get up and go to work.

Distraction from Imminent Despair

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Zounds cried the astounded clown in a gown who was bound for down town as he frowned at the resounding sound of the renowned crown that he'd found as it wound up on a round mound surrounded by abounding brown ground near his half drowned hound from around the pound. Meh.